25 March 2019

Kim Strassel on the Real Scandal (updated 27mar19)

[“Americans deserve a full accounting of the missteps of Comey and the FBI.” So argues WSJ’s Washington columnist Kimberley Strassel in the paper’s 25mar19 edition (here). The real scandal has been a burr under my blanket for a very long time, and I was going to compose some pithy rhetoric on the injustice that has cloaked that entire sordid affair. Then I read Strassel’s piece, and that lady puts it together better than I could, and most certainly in a more civil format. So I’m doing a first for RR here, and filching the entire piece for your reading pleasure. But lest you mistake my editorial retreat, I am pissed and will remain so until I see some semblance of an appropriately transparent and vigorous investigatorial draining of that swampy part of the Deep State. gjr]

Mueller Is Done, Now Probe the Real Scandal

Kimberely A. Strassel

Attorney General William Barr has reported to Congress that special counsel Robert Mueller has cleared President Trump and his campaign team of claims of conspiring with Russia during the 2016 election. This is more than an exoneration. It’s a searing indictment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as a reminder of the need to know the story behind the bureau’s corrosive investigation.

Mr. Mueller’s report likely doesn’t put it that way, but it’s the logical conclusion of his no-collusion finding. The FBI unleashed its powers on a candidate for the office of the U.S. presidency, an astonishing first. It did so on the incredible grounds that the campaign had conspired to aid a foreign government. And it used the most aggressive tools in its arsenal—surveillance of U.S. citizens, secret subpoenas of phone records and documents, even human informants.

The wreckage is everywhere. The nation has been engulfed in conspiracy theories for years. A presidency was hemmed in by the threat of a special counsel. Citizens have gone to jail not for conspiracy, but for after-the-fact interactions with Mr. Mueller’s team. Dozens more have spent enormous amounts of money and time defending their reputations.

None of this should ever have happened absent highly compelling evidence—from the start—of wrongdoing. Yet from what we know, the FBI operated on the basis of an overheard conversation of third-tier campaign aide George Papadopoulos, as well as a wild “dossier” financed by the rival presidential campaign. Mr. Mueller’s no-collusion finding amounts to a judgment that there never was any evidence. The Papadopoulos claim was thin, the dossier a fabrication.

Which is all the more reason Americans now deserve a full accounting of the missteps of former FBI Director James Comey and his team—in part so that this never happens again. That includes the following: What “evidence” did the FBI have in totality? What efforts did the bureau take to verify it? Did it corroborate anything before launching its probe? What role did political players play? How aware was the FBI that it was being gulled into a dirty-trick operation, and if so, how did it justify proceeding? How intrusive were the FBI methods? And who was harmed?

If Mr. Mueller has done his job properly, his report will address some of this. His team would have had to look into the sources of the allegations as part of determining the documents’ (lack of) veracity. A Mueller report that doesn’t mention the dossier and its political provenance, or questionable news stories used to justify surveillance warrants, for instance, is a report that is playing politics.

The fuller accounting will come only through total disclosure of FBI and Justice Department probe documents. Mr. Trump promised that disclosure in September but has yet to follow through. That transparency is now a necessity. The Mueller report is only half the story. With the special-counsel probe at an end, it’s time to go back the beginning—to the documents that explain its origin. Only then will Americans have the full story of the Russia-collusion narrative.

[26mar19 update] While the clueless Left is attempting to find solace from hopeful claims that “the last 2 years have uncovered multiple other potential instances of corruption investigating allegations that are equally as egregious as those Mueller was investigating” (emphasis mine), the country, save the alt-Left, is taking stock of what all this really means, and how to put into some perspective the mountains of horrible lies that the Dem leadership blanketed the country with over the last 2+ years. Here is a small sampling of them.

To date only ex-CIA head Brennan has cracked the lid on a bit of contrition, stating that “I may have relied on bad information.” (here) What about the rest of the leftwing schmucks who for months claimed they had “incontrovertible evidence” evidence of collusion, conspiracy, and traitorous behavior on the part of the president? Well, let’s bend over backwards and be fair to these sleazebags. Starting with Rep Schiff, why not publicly ask them to describe the nature of the evidence on which they based their streams of rabid accusations in the public press. Have them tell us the evidence and the reasoning which led them to conclude that the president was a corrupt enemy of America and a Russian operative.

After their performance since the 2016 campaign, this is not an idle request. We ask you to give the public enough detail to allow us to evaluate your ethics, reasoning prowess, and even IQ; after all, your constituents want to know whether you’re still qualified to remain in office after what to most Americans looked like you badly blew a tire somewhere along the way to the impeachment proceedings. Who can tell, maybe you all were given bum steers from previously reliable sources, and anyone in a similar position of blind hate could have made the same mistake. Please vindicate yourselves, or let your continued silence confirm the obvious.

[27mar19 update]Here is the dirt on the 50+ journalist scumbags who kept the Big Lie about the Russia collusion going for over two years. These are the very same people that our Left, especially the local loonies, revere as their source of truth and light.

Comments

,,,There has been no more barometrically reliable insight into the Trump administration’s defense strategy on Russia than Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel. Her weekly missives, essentially transcribed straight from the fevered mind of Devin Nunes, bring the readers up to date on every twist and turn in the developing conspiracy theories about the nefarious Deep State plot to frame the innocent president.,,,

,,,Please also post links to your summary of the Whitewater Investigations

Facts wont get in the way of a failed narrative by the rancid Russian dressing set -

Top Justice Department officials knew for weeks that special counsel Robert Mueller would not reach a conclusion on whether President Donald Trump obstructed the Russia investigation, torpedoing accusations of a rushed decision by Attorney General William Barr regarding the matter, according to a report.
CNN’s Laura Jarrett on Monday morning reported the special counsel notified both Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein three weeks ago that a determination on the issue of obstruction would not be made — not, as critics claim, over a 48-hour time frame starting Friday when he received the report.

‘An upcoming DOJ inspector general’s report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials.

“Accountability also must be handed out in the court of public opinion, where senior members of Congress, such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and former members of the intelligence community, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, along with several major news organizations, spun tall stories of a Watergate-sized criminal conspiracy between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

“Mueller’s anticlimactic finish to the special counsel’s probe on Friday made clear no such Trump-Putin criminal conspiracy existed. If it did, it would have been charged.

“Trump can help the American public reconcile these issues, too, by declassifying all briefings to Congress’s “Gang of Eight” leadership, so that the public can see what our leaders were being told behind closed doors and what they were claiming on the public airwaves.

“This accountability is essential to ensuring the nation never endures another travesty like the Russia collusion narrative.”

One little man, an unsung hero. Without him, draining of the swamp would be but a mere daydream. Good job, sir.

“So, when you hear stories about people who stood up for the truth in the face of a braying mob, know that it’s not just something that happens in fiction or in long-ago history. Remember that Devin Nunes stood in the breech and that he deserves the praise of a grateful nation. We would not long last without men like him who are willing to risk, as the signers of the Declaration of Independence said, ‘their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.’ Thank God this country still produces such men.

ROME — Donald Trump “is going to go full animal” now that he sees himself no longer under the shadow of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, former White House adviser Steve Bannon said last weekend. “When I saw no new indictments — I thought, Oh my God! They didn’t indict anybody regarding the Flynn investigation, they didn’t indict Don, Jr.! Maybe [Mueller] could have details about obstruction of justice that are not indictable, but are meaningful. But right now, it looks like they have nothing.” And he predicts Trump will “come off the chains” — and use the Mueller findings to browbeat the opposition and ignore House requests for more documents: “He will use it to bludgeon them.”

The beat will go on as if the Mueller Report never took place because...

...we have not seen the Mueller Report yet.
...there was one charge only for the Mueller Report, conspiracy to coordinate activity with the Russian government.
...the last 2 years have uncovered multiple other potential instances of corruption investigating allegations that are equally as egregious as those Mueller was investigating.
...those other investigations include the Trump campaign, Trump Organization, Trump inaugural, Trump Foundation, and other activities.
...there are at least 4 other investigations being processes by the SDNY, Eastern District of Virginia, and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
...there are multiple investigations going on by New York City, New York State, & Other State Attorneys General.
...charges include wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, campaign finance fraud, violations of FARA, violation of the Emoluments clause, and multiple cases of sexual assault.

In short, this will never go away because President Trump is the most corrupt person ever to hold the office of President in modern times.

The fact that many here continue to support him just illustrates your true values.

The beat will go in Steve. That’s true, but the battle is now in the court of public opinion and Trump is going to counter punch hard. Next two years will be interesting. We’ll get a preview on Thursday night when trump rallies in Michigan.

Flashback: Remember when Trump tweeted that Obama spied on him? The media had a total meltdown....across the board including here. Prove it! Trump is a Liar, unhinged, off his rocker. Well, it got proved by reading the media’s own statements and published articles, lol.

Worth watching most of it for the uninformed..or refresher. March, 2017. Trump is crazy! Accuses Obama spying on his campaign! Ok, let’s see what was out there in the public record.

Steve-
I have been mildly bewildered/amused that there is such a collective state of euphoria and a party going on here because the Ruminants somehow believe Trump is out of the woods, free and clear. Such is the life of denial.

The Mueller report was "inconclusive" yet it did nudge open a Pandora's box of collateral riches which require further daylight - not the least of which will be resulting in a protracted fight over releasing his taxes. Trump will be living on a rocking boat putting out hair fires for the rest of his days. Meanwhile Walt and Juvy will be jumping up and down shouting, "We won, we won, mission accomplished!". Heard that one before.

Tuesday is two for one at Nails and 5 Minute Massage up near the auto repair place. If you don't like the smell of burnt pork and Aqua Velva, find a detour.

“Which is all the more reason Americans now deserve a full accounting of the missteps of former FBI Director James Comey and his team—in part so that this never happens again.”

A full accounting is in order. Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Susan Rice and others must have their day in court. I don’t expect the IG report to be released until summer....nothing major before then. But it’s all out there.
The top echelon of various Obama departments have committed some very bad things. Beyond the gray area. Whether Brennan and Clapper are shot by firing squad or hung until they are dead matters little. What matters is some have their day in court and others investigated.
Historians are already writing about the biggest scandal and abuse of power in our nation’s history.

The thing that's a shame to me is that a thing that's actually both important and arguable, Obamacare, doesn't come up. It's a thing I can see both sides of and actually effects people. It's come into play and is worth examining.

Instead, our local Blue Mob is all about Russia and Pussy Grabbin' and 10 year old crimes by temporary Trump advisors and the 17 intelligence agencies and tax returns. Well, that and their Ann Coulter action figures.

The lack of interest in real public policy and the fixation on that rude guy that made fun of them in high school just shows how sparse the thinking really is. Feh.

Scenes, I think you are going to see that he was far less wealthy then he claimed he was during his campaign where he stated his fortune at over $10 billion. Just one amongst the many things he has serially lied about that his cult of personality accepts as truth.

The left and their lemming democrats always move the goalposts so nothing new to see. Meuller was their fair haired boy until he gave Trump his exoneration. Now he is a scumbag. I am with those calling for Shiff and his acolytes to resign from the committee and from Congress. Those democrats are Russian agents. They are doing a "blame others for what we are doing" and it will be exposed. The democrats are dirty and their pals Obama and his appointees will get indicted.

"Let me remind you that the AG report did confirm that the Russians did interfere in the elections. What is your reaction to that or does it matter to you?"

So go bitch at the Russians. In terms of foreign 'interference' in US elections, it's hard to consider $100k on Facebook ads (resulting in 10 votes? 100 votes?) and exposing some crimes by the DNC hardly counts as much. That assumes that they were the primary source of the exposure of the real collusion that's out there.

You should probably save your ire for the Israelis or the Arabs. God knows how much money and influence they've thrown at US elections.

It's probably time for some more of that deep deep KVMR research. Maybe Trump wrote off some underwear in his 1980 tax returns. Maybe he scooped off some sweet sweet nonprofit money from a Haiti relief effort. Maybe he's the cause of 5G brain cancer and chemtrail poison. Get crackin' old son

And quite the contrary I think this campaign will be all about the issues, starting with health care, climate change, jobs, the abandonment of rural America and Trump increasing debt as a means of rationalizing cutting Social Security and Medicare.

The Dems will live and win on the issues.

BTW if you think that states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio are going to go un-contested this time around you are mistaken. I am already planning on taking 6 months off in 2020 to work in Wisconsin.

Yep. It will all take time for the transparency to work its way up. Just gotta wait, and wait. Kinda funny that after after two years, the Dem talking heads on TV are saying they can’t trust the DOJ/FBI. One thing for certain is that the media and Dems are synonymous. Nothing new.

Steven Frisch: "And quite the contrary I think this campaign will be all about the issues,"

lol. BS. Unless you consider men in wigs competing in womens sports an 'issue'.

If Paul Emery is any indication, issues don't matter a lick. Perhaps you should have a confab with him and get to workin' on those issues.

Gotta love the concept of Democrats being the champions of the poor poor abandoned rural Americans. You've got to strip a bit of the contempt for them first. After that, just promise them a whole lot of stuff.

OH.. Back to health care. Tried and FAILED.
LIB minds so F'n short. So damned "free" you can't afford to use it, let alone pay for it.(even WITH "G" man subsidies)
Yup,, lets let that horse out of the barn again.

Whatever it is, it will be better than what your side did.
Third world health care for all. is what your boy "O" gave us.
You go ahead with what "RED" Cortez plan is. Outlaw private insurance. Just think how that will fly.

re PaulE 1019am - perhaps it's a bit early yet to get away from Russia (see 26mar19 update above). Don't you think the Dems have a huge credibility problem to straighten out first? What will Americans think when they next hear Nancy, Adam, Mad Max, ... make groundbreaking announcements about the nation's polity?

And then indeed it will be time to start understanding the progressive platform for 2020. I cannot think of anything that the Repubs will want more than to illuminate Democrat policy proposals. While there are no guarantees - after all, America is 98% innumerate - there's a good chance that most of us will be able to understand the difference between the road to continued growth and prosperity, and the road to Venezuela.

LIB Platform.. Raise taxes, No border, Free health care 2.0 , free money, Tax water, tax food, end the use of oil, Wind and solar for all our needs. Robots to replace workers( never mind how you support you family) Scrap the Constitution..
That just about covers it.

Paul, you're joined at the hip with "Russia" now. There's no getting away from it.

The current majority in the House was after well over 500,000 bogus articles written about Trump that were based on falsehoods, anywhere from Trump cooperated with the Russkies all the way to being he's been a Russian intelligence asset for decades.

That's all over now.

Not a single vote was actually changed by anything Russia did. They didn't "hack" the election in any meaningful sense of the word "hack". And there was no cooperation between Trump and his campaign and a foreign power.

Yes, Boris and Natasha were hanging around Frostbite Falls but neither Rocky nor Bullwinkle took the bait.

Emery is just out TROLLING.. Before he was bragging how he's already on Medicare.
Want heath care? Go find a plan you can afford. Like the good ol' days.
Maybe the Emery kids will stop getting fined for refusing to buy it.. OH Yaa.. Trump pulled the plug on that. Has Emery said thanks yet to Trump?(naaaaa)

Paul Emery | 26 March 2019 at 09:44 AM
Your reading comprehension is failing you again. Meuller left the issue of obstruction up to Barr and he and Rosenstein tossed the issue out. If their is no underlying crime then under the law there can be no obstruction. So once again you are a fake news person. Stop it.

Perhaps one should take policy issues over to the Sandbox. Things have a way of veering off topic. We have a press that totally discredited themselves, though the ones blinded by hate does not think so. If nothing else, it exposed many in the media to be downright dumb, to be charitable. Those people are plum stupid. We have been fed a truckload of lies and baseless outbursts from the mentally challenged for two years and they still expect us to give them a shred of credibility, lol. “Trump is going to fire Muelller!!” Sky falling. Yawn. Did like those montages of the unhinged making off-the-charts claims about Russian Collusion with Trump. I saw a couple of real doozies featuring Amy Goodman and Friends. Oh my. What outhouse to they dig up that crackpot from?

With that said, in the fullness of time we will get a better understanding of the depths of illegality the weaponized departments of the Obama Administration unleashed to invalid a US election. We may get to know who hatched the plot of the Russian Hoax. The Big Lie. The unmasking of the innocent. The biggest domestic scandal in US history.

We have the MR which must be to gone through page after page with the Office of Legal Counsel and other departments to find out what can be legally released on legal and constitutional grounds, not be mention national security concerns.

Patience, grasshoppers, patience.
Meanwhile, the trust in various government departments may have been destroyed for generations. Carnage left in its wake. A graveyard. We just went through two years of unsubstantiated claims and wild rumors that has divided our country...and all for naught. A hoax. A pack of lies with many enablers. We need to see how the Deep State tried to destroy our democracy and usurpt the people and the rule of law so it never happens again....until the next time. Well, we pretty much know.

PaulE, this post's comment stream is not for discussing healthplans (nice try). But we will do that as soon as the dust settles from the latest court ruling that Obamacare is now unconstitutional. This will totally change the previous replace/repair initiatives of the Repubs.

"It is the most compelling proof in a long time that false information repeated long enough becomes truth for many people.

Although we are still coming to grips with the finality of the Mueller report, one thing has become increasingly clear: The Russia collusion narrative — fanned by foreigners, dirty tricksters and a willing media — did, in fact, impact an American election. Not the one in 2016, but the midterm that came two years later."

Yes, dammit, it did effect the 2018 election, a point of my 1052am. And thinking about it, given the sheer volume of subpoenas that the Muller team processed with naught to show for it, he could have made the report last summer... but then the Punchys of the nation would be screaming bloody murder that it influenced the election.

Upright: “The biggest reason I never believed the Russian collusion charge was that the charge emanated from the left. And the left lies about everything. Truth is a liberal value, and truth is a conservative value, but it has never been a left-wing value. People on the left say whatever advances their immediate agenda. Power is their moral lodestar; therefore, truth is always subservient to it.” —Dennis Prager

For the record: “Democrats claim Mueller only suggested there was insufficient evidence to prove obstruction of justice and that, as the report says, ‘It does not exonerate him.’ Democrats will have a hard time making that case with the public because of their stalwart defense of former FBI Director James Comey who said of Hillary Clinton and her email server, ‘Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.’” —Cal Thomas

Fair play: “I hope [Attorney General William] Barr will appoint somebody outside the current system to look into these allegations, somebody we all trust, and let them do what Mueller did.” —Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham

An inconvenient truth: “This is a clear day of victory for the president.” —Al Sharpton

“Our standard is different than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. … If he still committed offensive conduct that does not meet the conduct we want for our president, Congress has a constitutionally equal role to play to hold him accountable.” —Rep. Eric Swalwell

Non Compos Mentis: “I don’t know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected that there was more than there actually was. I am relieved that it’s been determined that there was not a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government over our election.” —former CIA Director John Brennan

Ya think? “There is an honest level of sadness and disappointment and disorientation among progressives and Democrats and I think it goes deeper than just what’s in the report.” —Van Jones

The BIG Lie: “We are not investigators. We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did.” —CNN President Jeff Zucker

And last… “I’m okay with releasing the full report, but let’s be honest that a lot of those who want to see it aren’t interested in its conclusions. They’re interested in using it to attack people named in it, even if the prosecutors concluded they committed no crimes.” —Erick Erickson

Surfing the World Wide Web (and hanging ten), I came upon an article titled, “Post-Russiagate Who Has The Most Egg On Their Face”. Hmmm. No brainer. Stupid question.

My instant response without opening the page was,”None of them. They are too narcissistic. They did nothing wrong, in their eyes. Can’t shame a sociopath. Being a Progressive means NEVER having to say you are sorry.” Sorry?? Forget that noise. Heck, they can’t even admit they were wrong! They may not be sorry, but they sure are a bunch of sorry sumbitches.
Anyway, don’t need to waste more time kicking that dead mule again, but I am heartened that somebody but a 90 second video montage to music. So, one mo time.....with a beat.

This makes sense. Van Jones. Yep, if I were a normal person after watching 2 years of 17 Intelligence Agency Propaganda TV, I would be confused too. Very confused. Then they got their hopes up soooo high, then.......deflation. Confused is a nice way of putting it.

“People are accepting the process and accepting the outcome, but we're still confused."

“Some of my Republican friends [think] that Democrats are just purely partisan, just hate this president, and just want to do bad stuff to him," Jones continued. "There are some people who feel that way, but there's a bigger group of people that are just confused:

Jones added that "there is an honest level of sadness and disappointment and disorientation among progressives and Democrats, and I think it goes deeper than just, you know, what's in the report."

Now, why would they be confused? Who told us that Trump was in Putin’s back pocket? Who told us Kushner and Don Jr. are going down? Who told us “Mark the tape!”? Well, the answer is it was a group effort. Interesting to see that it started by Dec 2015, not July, 2016.
A question to be answered is:

If Crossfire Hurricane was the only investigation launched by FBI headquarters, who initiated the earlier investigation using informant Stefan Halper?

“Being a handler is one thing. Directing a confidential human source to meet with an individual connected to the Trump campaign is another. And under the DIOG, Gaeta (or another FBI agent) could not direct Halper to approach Page as a confidential human source absent the official opening of an investigation, whether it be at the assessment or preliminary investigation stage.

“No mention, though, has been made of an earlier investigation initiated by Gaeta or another FBI agent stationed outside of the FBI’s D.C. headquarters. Why not? And if the FBI wasn’t running Halper, who was?”

I stand with Gregory (211pm) that the lamestream's continual hysteria about Trump's Russia collusion did indeed affect the 2018 election. It would take sheer idiocy to argue that it had no effect on the mid-terms, and beyond that to claim that blasting Trump actually helped the Repubs in 2018. So now you know who and how elections are mismanaged here - it ain't the Russians.

Sen Rand Paul: Release of the MR is contingent on release of Deep State info.

Makes sense. If you are going to release an exhaustive report on Russian influence and collusion of Russians with US citizens in the 2016 election, the report would be incomplete without the Dossier, The Russian Hoax, and what the Obama Administration was doing while knowing that hacking and Russian influence was going down on their watch. Were they standing by twiddling their thumbs?

“For now, the full Mueller report is not yet public—and Paul said he intends to object to its full release until such time as all the documents regarding the Obama administration’s abuse of power to start this “hoax” investigation are also released.”

“My plan is to object to the release of the Mueller report and/or all of the Mueller information until they also release the complete information from the White House, DOJ, FBI, on why they chose to credit the dossier,” Paul said. “What were the discussions? And who was it who was promoting that the dossier was real? How did it come about? How were all these judgments made? So, the other side wants to read a million pages of Mueller report. We’re going to want to read a million pages of how this whole Russian hoax got started.”

Do you think the Republic will survive more of the shenanigans of the bought and paid for press that cranked out 530,000+ FALSE stories about the Russians control of the Trump White House since the '16 election?

A free press is needed, but the press we have is not free, it's downright skanky.

Clapper, Brennan, Comey. We need an investigation into those guys for a start. And a fair trial.

Now, do you believe in a free press and free enterprise, or not? Or do you only believe in a press constrained by your agenda, paid by advertiser of whom you approve, and news "babes" worthy, in your peculiar view, as eye candy?? Actually, never mind. The answer would require a string of two or more words.

So Gregory you are saying that they make yo 40 shows a day each Gregory? How about the real source you claim exists.

The answer to your question is yes I dispute your number. You are just assuming that everything they report is not accurate and you have done no research to prove that. Source please or some details as to how you researched that assumption.

Perhaps if the fakenews cabal would report real news they might actually make a buck off adds but with the same old, same old discredited fakenews you get this reality. WHAT A MAROON @716, individual stories/article repeated over and over is a fact. How many minutes of so called 'news' does CNN run every day???

But hey no one is watching you guys anymore;

Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network in total day and primetime on Monday, beating out liberal competitors CNN and MSNBC. “Hannity” was ranked as the number one cable news show, landing over 4 million total viewers and 728,000 in the coveted demographic of viewers age 25-54. MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” ranked second with 2.5 million total viewers and CNN’s “Cuomo Primetime” trailed in third with 911,000.

FNC has continued to be America’s most-watched cable news network since Mueller’s report was handed to the Justice Department on Friday, and a summary of the report was released Sunday. On Friday, Fox News topped its competitors, averaging 2.3 million total viewers, while MSNBC had 1.7 million views and CNN had 1 million viewers.

During Sunday’s breaking news coverage of Attorney General Bill Barr’s letter summarizing the Mueller report, led by “The Daily Briefing” host Dana Perino and chief national correspondent Ed Henry, FNC led with an average of 1.6 million viewers and 270,000 in the demo, crushing MSNBC’s 897,000 and CNN’s 855,000 viewers.

FNC has seen a triple-digit increase in total viewership and demo viewership in comparison to the same time period last year.

Woodward and Bernstein? Still waiting for the modern Woodward and Bernstein to appear on the scene. They got a big job to do. And everything must be sourced and documented. Much bigger than Watergate...exponential bigger

The quest for our current is answer this one questions:How far into the West Wing does this epic scandal go?

It’s the last months of the 2016 election. Summer and fall. Administration departments heads of FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Department......all involved in activitly spying on the Administration’s political opponent and his campaign during the heat of the race to the White House and feeding the press a story (Dossier’ concocted out of thin air....including rumors found on the internet.
We have the Administration participating or approving of the spying and getting every phone call and communication with anyone associated with the opponent’s Presidential Campaign, while simultaneously knowingly spreading the unverified Yellow Shower “salacious” docs through even branch of government...OP Research paid for Hillary AND the President’s own DNC.

After the election, we have the Administration’s NSA (Dr. Susan Rice) and even our UN Ambassador (Samantha Powers) and others unmasking hundreds upon hundreds of folks and illegally leaking their names to the press. Powers testified she was tasked with unmasking one name a day. When asked why she unmasked 300 in a short period of time, she answered she did not and does not know her name was on all the requests.

How far into the West Wing does this modern day Watergate X 5 go? The government, the Leftinista media, and Democrat politicians were all in on it. My, my.

Still waiting for our Woodward and Bernstein to rise up and dig fearlessly.

Did not Watergate start when a President was involved breaking into the campaign offices of a political opponent during the heat of a Presidental election??

Ukraine’s top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.

The leak of the so-called black ledger files to U.S. media prompted Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign and gave rise to one of the key allegations in the Russia collusion probe that has dogged Trump for the last two and a half years.

Paul, let's have you put on your thinking cap and come up with an estimation you feel better about.

How many news sources exist in the USA? 100? 1000? How often have they mentioned Mueller and Russia and Trump, Oh My! since the Mueller persecution started?

Would 265,000 suit you better? What about 132,500 total?

Like I said, I've seen a number, 530 thousand. But you're just deciding to be a fussbudget rather than coming to a conclusion. There is a very large number of news stories over the past 1,000 days about the "Russia Investigation", it has come to a conclusion... and there was an election this past November that was held with it sitting overhead like the smoke from Mordor.

Shit, how many times did the po' ol' fakenewsman breathlessly post the latest BS with prognostications of doom and gloom for the President each day? YO, ya po' ol' fakenewsman try a little extrapolation of the nodes and their recycling of anti-Trump crap?

Yeah, right. The man who was at the helm during this whole smear campaign and attempted soft coup..... the man who was directing things from his end....the Director of the CIA who was actively involved for goodness sakes, now says he might have gotten bad information??
Can you say. CYA? Don’t blame me, I was just the Director of the CIA at the time and spying on more reporters than any Administration in history, Oh, Brennan must have got snookered, lol. Anybody believe that?

KEY: “Brennan still maintained that there were inappropriate attempts to communicate with the Kremlin but said he was “not all that surprised that the high bar of criminal conspiracy was not met.”

It’s his last statement that got my ears perked up. ”not all that surprised that the high bar of criminal conspiracy was not met.”

Can you say ‘projection,? Brennan knows full well the “high bar of criminal conspiracy was not been met” by his own actions. Or hopes. Threading the legal needle, eh John?

Clapper and Brennan left the Administration to go on TV and continue the job they started.

——————————
Comey went out to the TV as well, but after his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, his lawyers have him laying low and peddling his CYA book. Can you say legal jeopardy? He and McCabe need to get their stories on the same page.

How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch? How many times a day, Punch?

I heard that repetition could help with elderly cognitive comprehension issues.

It’s deja vu all over again. Everything from popinjays reminds me of the Kavanaugh hearings. Trump is a Russian agent! Brit ran a secret serial gang rape enterprise! There’s other stuff in the MR. “Got Trump by the balls this time! We can feel it.”

Money quote: “they’re setting themselves up for another swat on the nose, but they can’t help themselves.

“As Barr clearly stated in his letter to Congress, “I am mindful of the public interest in this matter. For that reason, my goal and intent is to release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.”

“Nothing about that statement says anything resembling what we’re hearing now from pundits and Democratic politicians talking about a “fight” to pry this information out of the clutches of a resistant attorney general. Blind to the lesson just delivered regarding rampant speculation under the guise of argument and debate, they’ve taken the extra step of characterizing the obstruction evidence as “substantial,” having seen nothing that the rest of us haven’t seen.

“As is inevitably the case with lessons unlearned, they’re setting themselves up for another swat on the nose, but they can’t help themselves. It’s all they’ve got left, and they’re going to play it out as long as they can—even if it requires besmirching Barr’s character in advance of any actions that he’s taken, or is yet to take.”

Hillary sure knew how to stir up the country. TWICE!!
First it was "O"'s birth cert. to try and stack the deck in her favor. Yup, That was her first nuke job.
Then the bitch planted the seed for trying to take down Trump.
SHE was the first to utter the words "Trump must have colluded with the Russians."

Good read. We will probably see a bunch more ink on the topic. Many nuggets.

“Typically a fellow human’s intelligence is not questioned out of common courtesy. Sometimes, however, there is a need. If anyone believes that type of conspiracy theory, after two and a half years of withering obstructionism, he perhaps needs to have his intelligence insulted and shamed.”

“But this shouldn’t be over. Every time incessant attacks on conservatives are discovered to be unfounded, there are calls for national unity. As if it is a burden on the falsely accused to heal the wounds, not the false accusers.

“But that needs to end. Otherwise, there won’t be any balance or sanity restored. Vengeance is the purest form of emotion, according to the ancient Hindu epic of Mahabharata. Of course, it is a transliteration of the ancient Sanskrit word, which doesn’t mean vengeance in the way we know it in modern times, but the philosophy behind it is clear.

“Without accountability and punitive deterrence, there is no justice, and without justice, society implodes. From the hate crime hoaxers intending to simply “start a conversation” to the activist media bullying young kids, to academia providing fuel to the fire to sell their books, to the serial celebrity rapist-filled industry sanctimoniously lecturing on public morality, to public intellectuals fueling mass hysteria to bureaucrats trying to undermine a legitimate government—the single constant in all of these is a lack of accountability and pushback.

“It is time to ponder the same philosophical question that vexed ancient warriors on North Indian plains 5,000 years ago: How do we restore balance in society and bring about the fear of justice? The answer was that there needs to be a reckoning. A punitive deterrence needs to be established to restore sanity and order.

Now that its been established that it was 2 years of fake news the fallout begins for the fakenews peddlers -

On the credibility front, CNN chief Jeff Zucker tried to excuse his network’s two-year deliberate deception about Trump colluding with the Russians by admitting on Tuesday that no one at CNN does investigative work.

Daily Quotes go here again. Two days in a row. Beats two years in a row.

For the record: “Mr. Trump didn’t collude with Russia, but he did defeat Mrs. Clinton. From their behavior it is evident that many in the media view that as sufficient to establish his guilt.” —Sean Davis

Friendly fire: “The Russia collusion hoax was a disgraceful fake news witch-hunt that shames all of Trump’s deranged enemies in the media, the FBI and Hollywood and has probably ensured their worst nightmare — his re-election.” —Piers Morgan

Painful confession I: “On the basis of the letter that Attorney General Barr put together, it would seem to me that that is a substantial finding there. And I think it’s good news … for the president and for his campaign.” —former Attorney General Eric Holder

Painful confession II: “I believe that the Mueller report has been done. It’s a chapter that’s closed.” —Rep. James Clyburn

Alpha Jackass: “You have a[n] attorney general who applied for the job by talking down any potential obstruction conviction or indictment who then went to a Senate confirmation and refused to recuse himself. I don’t think under those circumstances he should ever have been confirmed. But he has now done the job he applied for, which is attempt to exonerate Mr. Trump when Mr. Mueller said no exoneration was in order.” —Rep. Adam Schiff

The BIG Lie: “I’m not at all surprised that the high bar of criminal conspiracy was not met.” —former CIA Director John Brennan (“Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash.” —John Brennan in The New York Times, Aug. 2018)

Before we get too far out in speculation and visions of bringing the untawdry to justice......

Consider if you will we are thinking too small. Suppose there was a coordinated US-Great Britain Transatlantic effort to interfere/sway the results in both Brexit and the US 2016 Presidential election. All release of information of certain docs requested by Congressial Committees hits the same roadblock: A “Western Intelligence” concern for objecting, “foreign” intel concerns......

I expect a slow walk, but Trump has a bit more help than before to get another lawyer uncovered and discarded. May never get to the bottom. Deep State implies deep.

How it all went dow : Collusion and The Tower explained....and other things..

“The curious Clinton campaign collusion connections don’t end there. Somehow it gets worse. The Russian attorney for Prevezon, which later settled charges of laundering money and violating sanctions in exchange for $5.9 million in fines paid to the DOJ, was none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya, who arranged the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, a meeting that was alleged to be proof-positive that the Trump campaign had illegally colluded with the Russians during the 2016 campaign.

“Unlike the fabulist musings of Steele, who by his own admission colluded with Kremlin officials as he prepared and disseminated his anti-Trump dossier, the Clinton-Russian connections are not the delusions of a deranged conspiracy theorist. They are documented and verified facts which for some reason escaped the attention of the scores of journalists and investigators who purported to root out any and all instances of foreign collusion during the 2016 election.”

Wow. Newt is getting serious about a very serious topic. I will have to wait for the video montage of what was told to the House Select Intelligence Committee behind closed doors and what Shifflips immediately ran out and told the press there with. As Trey Gowdy once said, “If they had anything on Trump, Adam Shiff would have leaked it by now.”

Pushback time. When they go low, kick them in the face and stomp their teeth in.

The BBC was ordered to pay damages after the far-left outlet published fake news claiming Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko “authorized” an illegal payment of $400,000 to Michael Cohen for additional face time during a June 2017 meeting with President Trump.

“We apologize to Mr. Poroshenko for any distress caused and have agreed to pay him damages, legal costs and have participated in a joint statement in open court,” the BBC’s said in a written apology published Thursday.

George the Greek found his Twitter machine. Hmmmm. I thought Crossfire Hurricane started in July, 2016. The British are coming.....as Dr. Rebane predicted many moons ago. And so is the Russian disinformation machine.